It’s nearly sunset when the rain hits. It’s like it comes out of nowhere; it was sunny just a few minutes ago. Now the canvas roof sings with the constant downpour. Buckets of water stream down around the sides of the cover. We’re supposed to be in the dry season, so I don’t expect this to last long and I welcome the deluge as a pleasant change. It doesn’t take long before the mugginess seems to double, and I find myself wishing for the sunny skies again.
The Geologist girls are squealing as they get drenched trying to get their deck roof up, so I reach over with my cloud and help them get it situated. I pause construction for a moment and check to make sure everything is stowed and everyone is under cover on all the boats. Most of our gear is designed for this, so there doesn’t end up being too much to do. The only person I’m at all worried about is Thao, who is off on one of the speedboats getting our dinner, but I figure he knows what he’s doing.
Keeya laughs, drawing my attention to her.
“This reminds me of the rainy season back home,” she says. “But that can last for days. Do you think that will be the case here?”
“Shouldn’t be,” I answer, looking up weather patterns in my index. “At least not at this time of year. If what I’ve read is right, then this shouldn’t last long.”
We get back to work, the clattering din of the falling water surrounding us. It only lasts ten minutes before it starts to let up, then it fades away to nothing as if it were never there. The sky turns a beautiful red with the sun almost down and now there’s hardly a cloud in sight.
Lucie seems to take an interest in our work now that the distraction of the rain is gone.
“So do you both build together?” she asks. “Or do you take turns? I just see them growing from nothing so quickly.”
Chad gets his pedantic big brother voice on and explains our assembly line, with him heroically pulling the critical minerals in from the huge area all around us, and Steph and me helping out with the little things like assembling them into the collectors and putting them into the water. He doesn’t mention that his job is almost entirely automated and all he had to do was tell his bots where to drop the stuff when we started. Not that my part is super complicated, but I at least have to manually kick off each build. Steph has the task that requires the most attention, but he barely acknowledges her role. I should give her some praise when we’re done. Her cloud isn’t huge, but she’s got a lot of finesse and is extremely efficient. Her gesture scheme reminds me of Andrea’s, with subtle finger motions doing most of the work. It’s a stark contrast from the one Phil and Stan created that seems to prefer big arm motions.
Thao arrives with packages of food stowed under a waterproof cover in the back of the boat. His clothes are still soaked from the rain, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I open my package of rice noodles with vegetables and meat. Steph mentions that the rain cooled hers down, but Thao explains that it’s supposed to be served at room temperature. Works for me. I don’t think the warm rain cooled anything off, and having a cool meal seems nice. Thao also stocks the fridge with more drinks and paper-wrapped packages before he heads along to the next cat.
With Keeya and Lucie out here, Steph seems a little more open. Probably helps that she doesn’t feel outnumbered by her oldest brothers anymore. She chats with them while we work. Lucie tells some funny stories about her boarding school in Johannesburg. Keeya tops them with her adventures in the orphanage on the edge of the bush. I’m a little confused by her terminology for a few minutes until the context makes it clear that by “the bush” she doesn’t mean just one bush, she’s talking about the whole desert area out away from the cities in her home country of Botswana. The way she tells it, they got up to some serious shenanigans. I don’t do a polygraph setup on her, since I’m keeping my focus on the construction, but even though some of her stories seem impossible, she seems sincere. Most of them seem to center around a big, dangerous animal they weren’t supposed to go near, but they did anyway but ended up barely escaping with their lives.
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Steph asks how she went from being an orphan to helping to run an operation like Chad’s. I’m a little curious too. Her file is thin on details on everything before college for her.
“The nuns who ran my orphanage came from many different countries,” Keeya says, counting them off on her fingers. “United States, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Angola, and Botswana. I learned quickly that I could get special favors if I learned to speak some words of their own language. Sister Mudiwa always carried sweets and would give me one if I greeted her in Shona. Sister Penelope would let me have more play time if I asked her in English. Sister Ayona, who did the cooking, would put sugar in my porridge if I would write her a note in Swahili. I came to love learning languages so much that I could speak, read, and write eight of them by the time I was twelve years old. If anyone who spoke a new language came to the orphanage, I would make them teach it to me.”
“Wow,” Steph says. “That’s amazing.”
“Thank you,” Keeya says modestly. “One of the Jesuits who would visit the orphanage from time to time took notice of me and helped me get into a very good secondary school in Gaborone. He got for me a scholarship, and he even found the money to pay the rest of my expenses. Father John was a very good man. He was American, but with dark skin, like you.”
She smiles at Steph.
“So how did you get involved with us?” Steph asks, returning the smile.
“I studied hard and did very well in school, so well that I was accepted to the University of Botswana in Gaborone. I was learning about business administration there. Father John continued to help me until he passed away. Without his help, I did not have the money to continue my education, but I learned from a professor about a job that paid very well and did not even require that I graduate. I filled out the papers, then I did interviews on the computer, and now here I am.”
“And I’m glad you are part of the team,” Chad chimes in. “Keeya is great, Steph. She coordinates the work for twelve of my ground agents, making sure that when I go in to take care of a village or city, everything is ready for me. She’s always handy to do translation for me and seems to know almost every language. She’s also great company whenever I can get back to whichever city she is staying in.”
Lucie, not to be outdone, shares her own story. Unsurprisingly, she was also gifted and broke. Her father moved her family from France to South Africa in hopes of making a fortune on some mining scheme. It started out great, but then collapsed when the mine he bought turned out to only have a single good vein. They went from very well off to wondering where their next meal was coming from within a year, with a mountain of unpayable debt trapping them. Lucie had to drop out of college and needed funds fast. I’m sure that the genetic contributor payout appealed to her circumstance at least as much as the generous salary of the job.
I can’t blame these women for wanting to cash in. It’s not their fault for being caught in terrible situations and only seeing one way out. My problem is Chad, like our Father, taking advantage of them with this predatory bullshit. We’ll never solve all the world’s problems if we stay reliant on the broken systems that produce these kinds of situations.
Mom, we’re going to have to think about this. Maybe Father’s master plan doesn’t go far enough.